Madam Speaker, the parliamentary secretary talked about political rhetoric. We have heard an awful lot of political rhetoric from him.
It is interesting that he said not to judge what is in place now by what happened then, as if it were 10 years ago. Then was a few months ago. We should be looking at how the government did not handle things appropriately a few months ago. For the parliamentary secretary to pretend that things have been fixed since then is simply not factual. It is not the case.
There are a couple of different aspects I want to ask the parliamentary secretary about. I want to make the point that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency has some extremely good people working for it. They are very capable, well trained, well educated people. The country is very fortunate because those good people certainly do protect our food supply in most cases.
Most often when problems arise, it is due to political interference by the government or due to the top brass at the CFIA who seem to lack respect for the individual farmers they are dealing with and also people who are working in the food processing industry. That is where the problems arise. It is not with the good people on the ground at the CFIA.
The parliamentary secretary said that the government is moving forward on an action plan and that it is preparing to meet another crisis. If the BSE mess over the past two years is not enough of a warning for the government to prepare itself for a crisis like this, then nothing will. We will have to change government to change that attitude and that lack of action. He said that the government is moving forward now. Why was it not moving forward before this happened? Why had the government not prepared before the avian flu outbreak happened, especially with the warnings that came from the BSE crisis? It is hard to imagine.
I would like the parliamentary secretary to answer that. I also have some important questions to ask about property rights and why fair compensation is not occurring in many cases, but I will ask them if I get another opportunity.